


your moment of zen

by QueenWithABeeThrone



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Comedy, Daily Show AU, Multi, News Media, News Satire, Office Romance, Slow Burn, Stand-Up Comedy, Talk Shows, Urban Fantasy, if your office was a satirical news show, robb and theon from asoiaf are somewhere in there
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-02-22
Updated: 2019-05-14
Packaged: 2019-11-03 19:41:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17883971
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/QueenWithABeeThrone/pseuds/QueenWithABeeThrone
Summary: The thing aboutLive At Nightis—It’s a comedy show. That’s practically the show’s mantra.The show leading into us has puppet crank-callers, asshole,Beau had snarled once at a Fox News commentator, slamming her fist into the table and standing up to glare him down,what the fuck’s your excuse?or: when news breaks, the Mighty Nein fix it. or they try to, anyway.





	1. this is a nightmare scenario

**Author's Note:**

> title is lifted from the coda to every Daily Show episode, known as "Your Moment of Zen".
> 
> chapters should go up twice a month, on Friday/Saturday after CR airs, but are subject to occasional bolts of inspiration.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> chapter title from this quote by Stephen Colbert: "I'm Stephen Colbert from the breaking news desk! Cable television anchors are reporting a potential smallpox epidemic breaking out in theaters here in the United States! _This is a nightmare scenario_ , a biological doomsday from which there can be no escape!"

**BEAU LIONETT:** Good evening folks, and welcome to _Live At Night_. I’m Beau Lionett, and tonight we’ll be having Ms. Calianna Hulmes here to promote her book, _The Taste Of Freedom_ , about her experiences growing up in and breaking out of a cult. But before _that_ , I’d like to ask, any of you heard about Ren Sutan’s dick lately?

_[Audience erupts into brief shouting, which dies down almost immediately save for one member who yells, “Who fucking hasn’t?”]_

**BEAU LIONETT:** Hey, you in there, don’t do my job for me. _[chuckle]_ Who fucking hasn’t, right? I’ve heard way more about this one man’s dick in two days than I, _a lesbian_ , should ever need to. On the bright side, though, this probably fills the quota for me hearing about a guy’s lackluster dick! How the fuck did it even make it into the news?

_[Video clip plays of Ren Sutan, 32 years old, with a truly horrific pompadour and eyes red from crying.]_

**REN SUTAN:** “This is slander, foul slander, being spread on my good name—I do not know this Cathy Robisal, I have never met her, and I have certainly never propositioned her in any capacity whatsoever—I do not know who she was chatting to or whose penis was being pictured and sent to her phone.”

 **BEAU LIONETT:** ...you sure? Because, man, I’ve got damn good eyesight, and I’ve read the texts. And you drop your full name in one of these because you actually think that’s gonna score you chicks and not, like, ridicule at best or a serial killer at worst. _[She leans into the camera.]_ That’s the _first rule_ of sending somebody an unsolicited dick pic! Never! Say! Your! Full! Name!

_\- Live At Night, Episode 57, December 17, 2016_

\--

The thing about _Live At Night_ is—

It’s a comedy show. That’s practically the show’s mantra. _The show leading into us has puppet crank-callers, asshole,_ Beau had snarled once at a Fox News commentator, slamming her fist into the table and standing up to glare him down, _what the fuck’s your excuse?_

She’s still proud of that moment, by the way, no matter how much yelling Comedy Central’s execs did after that. But anyway.

 _Live At Night_ is a comedy show, always has been, always will be. They just happen to be a comedy show that covers the news in a humorous way. At least that’s the goal, and that had been the goal when Beau inherited it from Shorthalt. Only, somewhere along the way she’d realized it’d be funnier if she punched _up_ instead of down, and now here they are, somehow the most trusted news show in the country.

Which really doesn’t bode well, since it’s ten minutes into the 9 AM meeting and Beau’s swearing internally as she huddles into the writer’s room with some of the more senior correspondents and writers, the ones who happen to be the closest thing she’s got to family. “What do you mean,” she says out loud, “Trevor _quit_?”

“He quit,” says Jester, holding up the notice like it’s made of radioactive waste. Her tail sways behind her, as annoyed as the rest of her. “He was like _I can’t work here anymore_ and we were like _but we haven’t hazed you in weeks!_ ”

“Yeah, I think it was ‘cause he got that job offer from Fox,” says Fjord. “For Ikithon’s show, to be exact.”

“Those evil fucks,” says Beau, with feeling. “And that _poaching bastard_. We’d just trained Trevor in our coffee orders!”

“He was stealing from us, though,” says Molly, drumming his fingers on the table. “No big loss. His jokes needed way too much rewriting anyway, too much straight white human male in them.”

“But I just got him to start putting five sugars into my coffee,” says Yasha, somewhat plaintively. “No one here remembers to put five sugars into my coffee.”

“Why five?” says Nott, alarmed, her mouth full of leftover Chinese. “That’s too many!”

“Just five?” says Jester, almost at the same time. “That’s too few!”

Beau quietly makes a mental note of that: Yasha likes her coffee with five sugars, nice and sweet. Yasha likes sweet things a lot, sometimes Beau catches her munching on one of Jester’s donuts or eating a Twinkie. Yasha likes flowers, there’s a vase on the writer’s table courtesy of her that’s regularly in bloom. Yasha can absolutely benchpress her and Beau would love her for it.

Fjord says, snapping Beau out of her thoughts, “We’re still down a writer, though, no matter how shit his jokes were. And we need another one soon as possible—Ray and Mercer are going off to LA soon, and we can’t afford to be down three writers and a correspondent.”

Beau winces. Ray and Mercer are definitely ripe for better pastures, they’ve been writing and “reporting” for _Live At Night_ since Shorthalt started hosting it nearly a decade ago. Still, they’re whip-smart and have their fingers on the pulse of the news as well as their audience, and Mercer’s near-godlike in how he remembers shit. Trevor’s exit has the worst fucking timing, Beau had been hoping to ease off some of the burden on them onto the rest of the team. She’d even retired Ray’s correspondent character.

Molly tilts his head to the side, the charms on his horns glinting in the fluorescent light, and says, “We could promote a couple of interns. I know Toya’s been wanting to really get her teeth into a few segments, and Velora tossed out that monologue from last week about Sutan’s dick pics.”

“Oh!” says Jester. “Toya did the overlay with Georgia too, y’know, the one where it looked like a dick?” She winks, overly obvious about it, and Molly cackles like the asshole he is.

Beau purses her lips. The hell of it is, he’s not wrong. Toya and Velora are good names, good writers, but neither of them are correspondent material. Toya’s voice is a little hoarse and small, and Velora freezes up in front of the camera and can’t improvise when things go wrong. “That’s two writers, but I need a correspondent and another writer,” she says. Two in one’s preferable, but she’ll settle for one of each.

“Well,” says Nott, suddenly, drumming her fingers on the table and looking very thoughtful, “my roommate’s a stand-up comedian. He’s from Germany, so he’s very deadpan, but he’s a very good comedian. Maybe even the best comedian in the city.”

“I really doubt it,” says Molly.

“What’s his name and number?” says Beau. “And who’s his agent?”

“Me,” says Nott.

“Is that even ethical?” Beau asks.

“I’m looking out for his best interests,” says Nott, which doesn’t actually answer her question and in fact just raises so many concerns. “Therefore, that means I’m his agent, and when I say he’s the best comedian in the city, _I mean it_. I wouldn’t be just anyone’s agent.”

“I don’t know,” says Molly, making a face. Of course he doesn’t know. He’s the most resistant of them to hiring correspondents from the outside at every meeting, something about how he doesn’t like disrupting an already-established group dynamic. “We could just poach Caduceus from the writing staff, it’ll be funny watching people like Cramer going up against him. He’s bullshit-proof and disarmingly charming.”

“But Caleb tells better jokes,” Nott insists.

“Listen,” says Beau, cutting in before Nott and Molly can start another argument, “Nott, convince your friend to come in just to try out. He might not make it as correspondent, in which case I’ll go with Molly and just promote Caduceus, but if he’s as good as you say he is, never hurts to have an extra writer in the room.”

“He’s gonna _make it,_ ” says Nott, fervently. “I have video of his routine right here on my phone! Come on, take a look—”

\--

“—and so I spent a hundred and twenty thousand dollars that I did not have, to earn a degree for reading books, professionally. _Ja_. My _vater_ , he would say, _Bren,_ meine spatz _, you will always make us so very proud,_ but I knew in my heart he very much wished I had gone into med school instead, because I already read books for fun. For _fun_. In his mind I’m sure he was thinking, _Why do you have to read books professionally? What in Pelor’s name is this degree? English? You already speak English! You do not need a, a degree to speak English and read books!_ But he did not say all of that, because he and _Mutter_ believed in this silly little thing called, ‘encouraging your child’.

It was that encouragement I took with me when I took this job at a small cable network known as Fox. I was then very quickly disabused of it, similar to how you wouldn’t be able to go five minutes in this city without someone very quickly relieving you of your belongings. At gunpoint. While smelling vaguely suspicious.”

\- Caleb Widogast, live stand-up at Josie’s, October 10, 2015


	2. see if it doesn't change your perspective

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "Yeah. Exactly. Just think about what that man said for a second, and _see if it doesn't change your perspective_. [pause] I'm sorry, I realized, some of you might not have understood his accent. Can we get that to play again, please?"  
> [video clip of man with indecipherable accent plays again, with subtitles]  
> \- Trevor Noah from [this clip](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uNsxCU0glHw)

Of course the first thing Molly does is take a look.

In fact, he looks up Caleb’s Facebook page first, and then finds his next gig: a little bar in Midtown-West (formerly known as Hell’s Kitchen) where they sometimes book up-and-coming comedians hoping to catch a big break. Or just hoping to get enough money to pay rent for the month, more likely.

He turns his coat inside-out, winds a scarf around his neck and jams a hat on top of his horns before he steps inside at 4 PM, half an hour before Widogast’s gig starts. Like this, he’s not quite so easily recognizable as _that tiefling from Live, the purple one_ (or Lucien, but it’s been years since Molly heard that name), and he can slip into the bar as easy as breathing.

It’s a bar that’s desperately trying to go for a deconstructed rustic tavern look. Whatever that is. To Molly, it just looks like they put up some wood paneling, scattered potted plants all over the place, lit electric torches, and called it a day. He snorts out a laugh at the sight of it, already idly writing the bit in his head for his weekend show: _so I walked into a bar trying to be the hipster version of a rowdy tavern in_ Game of Thrones _, right…_

Hell, they’ve even got racks of various expensive liquors behind the bartender. Molly buys himself a glass of wine, because he deserves to treat himself after a long day trawling through CNN and Fox’s archives and keeping himself from tweeting angrily at Raishan. Some wine’s a good start. A good standup routine’s the next step.

He digs up Widogast’s Twitter account, while he’s seated at a table waiting for the man himself to come out. It’s set to private—not a surprise. His IMDB profile just lists him as a former writer and reporter for, ugh, Ikithon’s show, the one that Molly and the rest of the gang have been making fun of intermittently on _Live_. Not a surprise there, Widogast didn’t make any secret of having worked at Fox once.

Gods, Molly really hopes this guy doesn’t turn out like Stormwind did. The routine Nott had showed them had looked good, full of deadpan and almost fatalistic humor, but one tape’s not enough, no matter how cute the guy looks on Nott’s phone. At least not for Molly.

Eventually, Caleb Widogast does come out from backstage, in a worn brown suit and a tie patterned with pawprints. He crosses the stage and steps into the spotlight, and Molly sits up straight.

Oh.

Oh, damn.

Oh, _damn_.

“Ah, _hallo und guten Nachmittag,_ ” says Caleb, and something about the way the light bounces off his hair makes Molly’s breath catch in his throat. “I am Caleb Widogast, and I will be your entertainment for the night.” He smiles, a small, fleeting thing, and Molly catches the barest hint of teeth before it’s gone again. “I, ah, apologize for my attire, it’s not so formal as I think any of you have come to expect out of me, but—well, what can I say, I like cats.”

There’s a small titter of laughter through the audience. Molly takes a sip and leans forward. Unfiltered through a rapidly-deteriorating iPhone’s speakers, Caleb’s voice is low and rough, a German-accented baritone that immediately reaches down into the lowermost parts of Molly’s hindbrain and flips a switch that says, _Oh my god this is hot._ He grabs his wineglass and downs the whole thing, covering up his coughing fit with a tissue.

Caleb nods, completely unaware of Molly’s tiny crisis. “I believe that you can tell how good a person is,” says Caleb, “by how much they like cats. Now I know this is not a perfect indicator, because plenty of terrible, _terrible_ people love cats—Ormid Hass loves cats, and he is currently Twitter’s Worst Public Figure of the Week because he tweeted his support for repealing anti-discrimination laws. He’ll be dethroned next week by Dwendal again, I’m sure, but I think it is an achievement in itself to even temporarily displace our good president Bertrand Dwendal, _ja_?”

Cheap shot at Dwendal, but that gets a laugh out of the audience and out of Molly as well. Caleb’s not wrong. Dwendal’s tweets are consistently a thing of horrific beauty, and way too easy to make fun of. He watches Caleb on the stage, sees the way he smiles just a little, as if not quite believing he made that joke and made people laugh about it.

Goddamn, and Fox News had this guy?

“But we have also seen that Dwendal _despises_ cats,” Caleb goes on. “I would not be surprised if steamed newborn kitten was his breakfast. And we have a record, from his own fingers and his own mouth, how much of a terrible, vile person he is. That man, I believe with all my heart, would ban cats from the country forever along with all the other not-white not-human not-mainstream religion undesirables, if not for the sheer backlash he would get from his powerbase.”

A few agreeing chuckles, and Caleb moves on.

“Cats are—they are _good_ , is the thing,” he says. “Or rather, they do not care for good and evil so long as you have enough of a heart to love them. Or at least to coo at a cat video when it crosses your Twitter feed or when it shows up on your YouTube page. There is a _reason_ why cat videos are so widely sought after these days, especially if you work in news, and _especially_ if you work in a conservative news outlet that worships at the feet of cat-eating maniacs.”

Now there’s a laugh that rolls through the audience, like a wave crashing on the shore. Molly ducks his head, unable to keep himself from smiling just a little bit.

“ _Ja_ , take it from me, all my recommended videos on YouTube are just cats now,” says Caleb, running a hand through his red, red hair. “And occasionally Fox, but I haven’t managed to train the algorithm into excising those as of yet. _So_ much easier to train my cat to piss in a litterbox. And, speaking of my cat, there’s something I’d like to show you about him.”

He snaps his fingers, and a cat appears around his neck, meowing directly into the microphone as Caleb scratches behind his ears. Molly turns around, to see the audience melting visibly and audibly at the sight of a cat. _Point made,_ he thinks.

“Frumpkin is a magic cat,” says Caleb, and Frumpkin purrs. “Now, two weeks ago, he and I were taking a walk in Central Park, and I wasn’t paying any attention to him, because Frumpkin does whatever he wants whenever he wants, and I cannot do anything about that beyond making sure he does not try to get amorous with someone’s leg.” He pauses to let the audience’s laughter pass, and then continues, “So, that day, I was reading on a bench, and Frumpkin was chasing after a duck. That’s just his thing, he chases after anything that looks even remotely like it might be delicious or a good gift to drop at my feet, which is why I have a collection of dead leaves in my room now.”

Molly idly thinks, _Well, what about the dead rats?_

Sure enough, Caleb follows up: “I very much hope that whoever decides to go rooting through my trash does not think of me as a sick man who tortures rats. That is Frumpkin. He’s a sick cat who tortures rats.” He reaches up to scratch Frumpkin behind the ears again, and the cat purrs into the microphone. “ _Ja_ , you are. Anyway, where was I—so I’m not doing anything but enjoying myself, I’m just reading this book about a half-orc and a businessman’s daughter falling in love—”

“ _Oh my god Tusk Love,_ ” somebody says from the crowd, right as the title pops back into Molly’s head with Jester’s enthusiastic endorsements: _the best love story of all time!_

“—yes, that one,” says Caleb, without missing a beat. “It’s very, ah, titillating.” The audience erupts into laughter, and Molly snorts out a small laugh as well. “I’m reading, he’s chasing, and then a moment later I hear a woman yelling about a mangy feral, then someone screaming, _what the fuck is this cat doing here,_ and I have maybe one second and start running before this _arschloch_ , with grey hair and a, a soul patch, gods only know why, kicks my cat. My _cat_ , who has done nothing to him and his girlfriend ever before, and wasn’t even attacking them, just trying to hunt down a duck.”

Frumpkin gives an upset-sounding meow, as Molly gets up to get himself more wine. An _aww_ ripples through the audience.

“Now, you know, magic cats like Frumpkin, when someone kicks them hard enough to, say, seriously injure an ordinary cat, they just disappear into thin air. Like so.” And Caleb snaps his fingers, and Frumpkin pops out of existence with a _poof_. “So imagine this man’s surprise when the cat he kicks suddenly disappears into thin air instead of being thrown into a bush like he surely thought, and this shabby hobo who must’ve just escaped from an asylum just appears in his line of sight, waving a book around and spitting harsh syllables in another language at him, like a thing from the depths of the lagoon that he raised by kicking a cat. He screams, louder and far, far higher than his girlfriend did, this scream like a little girl who’s just been told Santa isn’t real, and they both just _run_.”

This is leading somewhere, Molly thinks. He drifts back to his seat, a full glass in hand.

“So, you know, I just resummon Frumpkin—sink a hundred dollars and a missed meal into the whole mess, too, because incense and coal are not cheap—and the next day I’m scrolling through Twitter, and then who do I see under the name of _Professor Anders_ but Herr Cat-kicker himself?”

Molly does not spit his wine back into his glass. He knows Professor Anders. More to the point, he’s been following along with all the controversy about Professor Anders’ “provocative” comedy and the allegations popping up on Twitter about him. Somehow, he is _not surprised_ that this is the kind of person who would kick a cat for crossing his path.

“Anyway, that is why,” says Caleb, finishing up as he picks up a bottle of water and unscrews it, “Professor Anders not only owes five women about $35,000 for emotional damages, but he owes me a hundred dollars and fifty-two cents, exactly, for kicking my cat into nonexistence. I may be a terrible person, but at least my cat and those women will get the reparations they deserve.”

The audience breaks into fits of laughter, and Molly sits back in his chair and thinks, _Well, Nott’s got something here._

Caleb tilts his head back, taking a sip of water. A trickle escapes down his chin, out of his beard, down his neck, and Molly finds himself tracking its journey down, down, down.

Nott _really_ has something here.

\--

“I don’t know if I’m going to make it, Nott,” says Caleb, faintly, staring up at the building housing the _Live At Night_ studios. “This is—This is much bigger than just doing standup at the bar. This is national TV. This is _the biggest news show in the city._ ” He pulls his bag up to his chest, breathing in and out and trying to calm his racing thoughts down. Gods, he isn’t cut out for this.

“It’ll be fine,” says Nott, encouragingly. “They liked your tape! Beau thinks you were pretty damn good!”

“Even though I had to dodge a tomato near the end?” Caleb asks, clutching at his bag. He should go. He should walk on out of here and go back to that gig he cancelled, because he knows bars, he can play with the audience at bars, and if they don’t like him at a bar then it’s not as if he won’t at least have some beer afterwards. He can’t be here, about to try out for a show people have been lauding for its sharp humor and sharper political commentary. He just _can’t_.

“They call that physical comedy in showbiz,” says Nott, very seriously. She reaches up to grab a firm hold of his suit jacket. It’s the best one he has, and even then it’s a little grubby.

“Even though I talked about working for Fox News?” Caleb persists, trying to dig his heels into the pavement to no effect. The cement is just too hard, and he is not so strong as to be able to crack it with enough effort. “Correct me if I’m wrong, but Beauregard Lionett _despises_ Fox News. She will not like me. No one will like me.”

“She works with Molly and they don’t like each other,” says Nott, dismissively waving her hand. “As long as you’re civil and don’t make out with the interns, she’ll be fine with you.”

“Even if I’m not smart or funny enough?” Caleb presses.

Nott tugs on his suit jacket, and he crouches down obediently to meet her gaze. She cups his face in her hands and says, “Caleb, you are smart, and you are funny. I showed Beau your tape, and she saw both those qualities right away. She was _laughing_ at your bit about your English degree. She wants you to come talk to her, at the very least.” She chews on her bottom lip, then sighs. “You don’t need to be in front of the camera,” she says, “you can just be a writer. But you can’t run away from this, it would be a shame to waste this opportunity to be _more_. Please, Caleb?”

Caleb lets out a breath, then, slowly, nods. “I suppose it wouldn’t hurt,” he says, at last, and lets Nott drag him in past the glass doors, with _Abandon Hope, All Ye Who Enter Here_ cheerily pasted over the entrance in glittery pink letters. Joke’s on them, he abandoned hope a long time ago.

“Hey, Jester!” Nott yells, getting the attention of a little blue tiefling in a bright pink dress playing something on her phone. Caleb tries not to feel so much like a man being marched to his execution as Jester springs to her feet, practically bouncing on her heels as Nott drags him up to her. “Jester, this is Caleb, he’s my roommate. Caleb, this is Jester, she’s one of our correspondents and her mom’s an executive producer.”

“Bryce is our casting director, but they’re out right now,” says Jester, shaking his hand, “so why don’t you come up with me to the writer’s room? As long as you don’t touch the writers while they’re working on their pieces I think you should be okay!”

“ _Hey Jester, Fjord ate the takoyaki,_ ” a faintly familiar voice calls out from—somewhere. Caleb frowns. Is that—

“Go to Caduceus!” Jester shouts back, and there’s the sound of hurried footsteps getting further and further away. She turns back to Caleb and says, “That’s Beau.”

Caleb only manages not to faint dead on the spot out of sheer willpower alone. That was Beau Lionett. That was _Beau Lionett_ , youngest and fiercest talk show host on TV right now, certainly the boldest comedian Caleb can think of. That was the host of _Live At Night_ whose voice he just heard, and for a moment Caleb freezes in place, as if half-expecting her to stroll out, cool and collected, and look him up and down as though he’s refuse stuck to the sole of her shoe, the same way Ikithon did on Caleb’s first day.

When Beau comes out, she doesn’t even look at Caleb. However, most of her attention is focused on a half-orc that Caleb quickly identifies as Fjord, the show’s Senior Marine Correspondent, and he’s bent over in pain, clutching at his stomach as Beau holds him up. “Hey, Jes, hey, Nott,” Beau says. “And—you Caleb? Hey.” She pauses, then adds, somewhat awkwardly, “Sorry if I don’t shake your hand. Mine are full right now. Obviously.”

“Afternoon,” Fjord manages. He’s far greener than he usually is on TV, but that might be the food poisoning. “‘Scuse us.”

“You’re ‘scused,” says Jester cheerily, and Fjord and Beau barrel on through to the other side of the lobby, disappearing up a flight of stairs. “Come on, let’s get you up to the writer’s room. Bryce will meet you there after they come back, but if you ask me,” and she lowers her voice, “I think you’re gonna have a job here either way. You really impressed Beau.”

\--

 **BRYCE FEELID**  
Yeah, of course I’d seen the show, everyone did. _Live At Night_ is one of those shows that’s something of a cultural touchstone—hilarious most of the time, but always sharp and on top of the political ball, as it were. My roommate used to call it a bastion of sanity in a political shitstorm, and it was never afraid to call out the flaws even in left-leaning policies. With a dick joke, of course. That being said, the majority of the staff I saw were cisgender and white, and I figured there probably wasn’t a place for me there.

 **SCANLAN SHORTHALT**  
Yeah, my previous casting director and I had a bit of a falling-out. So I was hunting around for a new one, and then Vex said, “since we’re going to be committed to covering as much shit as we can, how about hiring Bryce Feelid?”

 **BRYCE FEELID**  
My interview was—memorable, to say the least. Shorthalt came to the table wearing this pink jumpsuit, facepaint tattoos like you’d see a kid wearing at a birthday party, and, I’m not kidding here, a cube. And the whole time he was seriously discussing the job and its responsibilities with me, and I was like, _this is a test, do not acknowledge the ridiculousness, this is a test, do not acknowledge the jumpsuit or the facepaint or the cube, this is a test, do not look at the cube_. I think I passed.

 **SCANLAN SHORTHALT**  
They absolutely passed. Although I really would’ve liked time to wipe off the facepaint from Vex and Percy’s kid’s birthday party.

\- Live At Night: _Digging Into Darkness (2016), by Kaylie Shorthalt_


	3. i got work on monday

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> title is from this quote by Trevor Noah, about a man who tried to fly out of Hawaii during the missile strike false alarm: "I like that this dude was gonna try and sidestep a nuclear holocaust. Everyone was like, 'we're all gonna die', and he was like, "no, y'all gonna die, _I got work on Monday_."

_[Three video clips from NBC play one after the other._

_The first video clip is that of Aldor McNamara, 42, standing in front of a picturesque park as he says, “All of Hollywood is on edge after the recent cyber-attack on Netflix.”_

_The second video clip plays quickly after that, showing scenes related to the hit Netflix original series,_ Luck of the Irish _. A voiceover explains, “The fourth season of the smash hit series_ Luck of the Irish _was set to come out on April 12, but a group of hackers under the Twitter handle of the Myriad claim that they uploaded most of the new season to a torrent site over the weekend after Netflix failed to respond to their ransom demands.”_

 _The third video clip displays the tweet made by the Myriad’s Twitter account, stating that_ Nothing and nowhere is safe. Give us what we ask, or we will take it by force. We are not playing games anymore. _A voiceover says, “A tweet made by the group under their shared account states that_ we are not playing games anymore _.”_

_The clips end, and Beau, sitting at her desk, looks bemused.]_

**BEAU LIONETT:** … _Luck of the Irish_? Really? You thought—hold on, did you guys really think Netflix would pay top dollar for, like, their kinda-creepy, douchey, weird uncle who drinks too much at family reunions? The only people who actually, willingly watch _Luck of the Irish_ live in their parents’ basements and have never even talked to a girl in their whole lives.

_[Audience laughs, and Beau shakes her head in confusion, propping up her chin with the heel of her palm.]_

**BEAU LIONETT:** Like, their lives come pre-ruined. You really wanna shake shit up? Spill _Game of Thrones_ spoilers. I promise, you do that and in two days, at least six million people are going to be making the show look like _Queer Eye_.

_[Another laugh, and Beau straightens up.]_

**BEAU LIONETT:** You go after _Queer Eye_ , though, and I’m gonna come to your houses and put a fist through all your technology. Even your coffeemakers. And that’s just what I’ll do—you do not wanna know what everyone else at this office will do.

\- _Live at Night, episode 69, January 14, 2017_

\--

When Beau finally drags her ass back from Caduceus’ corner of the offices, she heads over to the writers’ room. It’s almost instinctive by now, honestly, and she doesn’t completely remember that there’s a meeting being held in there until she pushes the door open. She doesn’t even notice Nott anxiously fiddling with her rings and a fidget spinner outside, she’s that distracted.

Widogast practically jumps a foot into the air, looking like a very scruffy rabbit that’s just seen a car’s headlights coming down on him. Bryce sinks into their chair somewhat, and a second later a chair gets gently nudged out closer to Beau.

“Thanks,” says Beau, sliding into the chair. To the side, she can see two writers on separate laptops sitting near the window: those two guys again, what’re their names, Robbie and Theon? “Ignore me, I’m just gonna scroll through my Twitter feed, see if there’s anything we should add to tonight’s show last-minute.”

“Dwendal’s VP tweeted about yesterday’s show again,” says Jester. “He’s mad about his bunny showing up in my book. You should do a bit about that.”

“Maybe a joke in the monologue tonight,” says Beau. “I don’t wanna give him more credit than he’s worth. And _no_ , Jester, I already plugged your book like, twice, yesterday.”

“But it’s bunnies getting gay-married! That’s the cutest thing you’ve ever heard, right, Beau?”

“Kinda is!” Robbie shouts from his position near the window.

“Shut up and keep digging,” Beau says, not looking at him.

“Well, honestly,” says Bryce, breaking into the conversation, “we’re already pretty much done here.” They nod to Caleb, who’s valiantly trying to sink deeper into his seat like he wishes he could go invisible somehow. “I don’t recommend putting him in front of the camera right away, but he could work his way up from writing.”

“I am—all right, behind the scenes,” says Caleb. “And in standup. But that is different from going in front of a camera and going _hallo_ to half of America. I am not—I have tried that before and it did not go very well for me.”

“But you’ve never been filmed doing stand-up before,” Jester says.

“ _Ja_ , well,” says Caleb, looking down at the table as it clicks into place in Beau’s head, “I was not doing stand-up. Or comedy.” He laughs, the sound of it edging on broken. “It’s on YouTube, I was—I was not a good person. I espoused views that were not, are not in line with this show.”

Bryce shrugs. “We know,” they say. “Nott showed us your video, you mentioned yourself that you worked at Fox.” Their face scrunches up a little. Yeah, Beau feels that disgust too, Fox News is deeply screwed-up in so many ways. “Fair and balanced,” yeah, right.

“I don’t care personally if you worked at Fox,” says Beau. “Long as you don’t harass anybody around here, long as you’re funny and smart and you do the job in front of you, I don’t give half a shit if you used to kick puppies over at Fox.” She stands up and spreads her arms, trying her hardest to encompass the whole room, the floor outside, the whole goddamn building and even the really early ticket-holders lining up right now. “Everybody here is an asshole! We have to be. We’re in comedy and we have a show that airs live four days a week that’s all about political commentary. If everyone here was nice and minded their manners we wouldn’t be getting half the material we need. The world needs assholes like us to shine a light on bigger assholes.”

“I’m not,” Jester pipes up. “And Bryce is much nicer. And Robbie bought everyone brownies last week.”

“I’m an asshole, though,” Theon says.

“Okay, Bryce and Jester are the exceptions,” Beau amends. Jester is, in her own way, kind of a dick, but she’s so cheery and genuinely kind that it doesn’t really register. Robbie is just an asshole with sugary flavoring. “The rest of us are dicks, though. You’re gonna fit right in.”

“You’ll just have to buy all our coffee until we hire new people,” says Jester. “So just write this down for tomorrow—”

“Wait, wait,” says Caleb, suddenly, “wait, _bitte_ —tomorrow? You want me to come in tomorrow?”

“As a writer,” says Beau. “We’ll work on correspondent later.” He could be a good one, she’s sure. A little bit of cleaning up, especially around the beard, and he’d look like your average news reporter. Helps that he had been one before. “First pre-show meeting starts at 9:30 in the morning. I suggest accompanying Nott, she tends to get here before it starts so she can have first crack at the snacks.”

“Speaking of Nott,” says Bryce, getting up, “I’ll tell her the good news and get a few things printed out for you. Just sit tight.”

“Speaking of _snacks_ ,” says Jester, “I’m gonna go find donuts!”

As soon as Bryce leaves, as does Jester in search of donuts, Beau props her chin up and looks Caleb in the eye. After a moment, he looks away, his hand rubbing over his shoulder. This is a different man from the one on the stage in Nott’s video, she can tell that much. “Hey,” she says. “I’m a trash person too, no matter what half the fanbase thinks about me. Why do you think I’m in comedy? But I’m aiming my trash at people who deserve to get dumped on. You have trash? Aim it at people who deserve to get pelted in the face with trash.”

“I did not say anything,” says Caleb, weakly.

Beau shrugs. “Didn’t need to,” she says. “I watched your video. Funny shit, that—but I was in stand-up too before all this. I got a lot of my material from just how shit I was as a person too.”

“Was that the only video you watched?” Caleb asks, drumming his fingers on the table. “You are a very thorough woman, you read the books your guest authors write in order to dismantle them better. You must’ve watched more than just the video Nott showed you.”

Smart guy. Beau leans back in her chair, and says, with a shrug, “Yeah, I did. Hell, go back far enough in Scanlan’s tenure, and there’s a few clips of you that the show tore apart.”

“So why hire me?” Caleb asks. “And do not say it is because I’m funny. What else is there?”

Beau shakes her head. “That fucking is it,” she says, and hopes it doesn’t sound so much like a lie. Caleb isn’t wrong, it’s not just because he’s funny—he’s maybe one of the few people around here who’s just as much of an asshole as Beau herself is, and he doesn’t have that liberal icon bullshit to deal with. “I said what I said. I don’t _care_ that you were on Fox News years ago. You don’t owe them shit anymore, do you?”

Caleb runs his teeth over his lower lip, and says, “ _Nein_. No.”

“Then I don’t give a shit,” says Beau. “You got the job. Congrats.” She stands up, shrugging her blazer back onto her shoulders. “Nott’ll tour you around—”

“Um, _ja_ , about that,” Caleb starts, just before the door slams open hard enough that Beau swears the hinges just broke. Goddammit, they’d _just_ fixed that door.

“Caleb!” shouts Nott, bursting into the room. “Caleb, congratulations!” She sprints towards Caleb, vaulting over the table with ease that Beau kind of envies, and almost knocks Caleb and his chair over with the force of her hug. “See, I knew you could do it, I _told you_ you could do it!”

“Nott! Just the goblin I’m looking for,” says Beau, smacking the table to get Nott’s attention. “Can you take him around on a tour? Promise it won’t take long—”

“Nah, I got a flight to catch,” says Nott, and Beau remembers in a flash: right, Nott’s flying to Florida with Keg for that story on the baker who denied a cake to a couple for “religious reasons”.

In the back of her mind, Beau starts reviewing what else everyone’s doing: since Nott and Keg are out, that means Jester’s going to start hitting the keyboard once she gets back from her donut hunt, and meanwhile Fjord’s still recovering from that takoyaki from earlier, who even _eats_ takoyaki that old, god. Caduceus is also going to be hitting the keys, probably once he’s done steeping his tea and making sure Fjord doesn’t die of food poisoning. Shakastë’s in DC doing a segment on the ruling party’s attempts to undo half the progress that’s been made over the past decade, Yasha’s filming that show with the hot tattooed lady, the interns are overworked and underpaid and aren’t going to like being impromptu tour guides—

“Hey, Beau,” says Molly, coming in through the door and interrupting Beau’s thoughts, as well as the heartfelt goodbye happening in front of her, “the door’s broken again and Sam Riegel just called to cancel his appearance next week—”

“You!” Beau yells, pivoting on her heel to point at him.

“ _Was?_ ” says Caleb.

“Ha, I _knew_ she was gonna find out about last week!” crows Nott.

“The hair dye last week wasn’t me,” says Molly, holding his hands up. “Swear to god.”

“Which one, asshole?” snarls Beau, momentarily off-track, because goddammit she _knew_ Molly had a hand in that. Then she pauses, and says, “I’ll get you back for that, but you—tour our new writer around.” And she points at Caleb, who’s squinting at Molly as if he’s seen him around before. She’s not surprised, Molly’s had one more controversial segment than she has. _At the moment._

Molly, for his part, looks weirdly stunned for a second. Beau has just enough time to enjoy the view before her cell phone starts to ring, and she pats Molly on the shoulder, shoving him in Caleb’s direction. “Don’t haze him too much,” she says, before she ducks out of the room.

“Don’t you _dare_ haze him,” Nott snarls, the last thing Beau hears before she tries to shut the door behind her.

There’s a back door downstairs that she sometimes uses, when she doesn’t want people to know she’s out of the building. She vaults down a flight of stairs, shoves the door open, and skids into the alleyway, fumbling her phone out of her pocket and sliding her thumb across the screen to accept the call.

“Beau?” says Yasha, over the phone.

Beau smiles, and rests against the wall. “Hey, Yash,” she says. “How’s _Blindspot_?”

“Oh, you know, it’s doing okay,” says Yasha. “I don’t have a lot of scenes this episode, actually. I filmed all of them an hour ago, but, well, I had to get all the makeup off.”

“We’ll watch it anyway,” says Beau. “Hey, uh, you doing anything right now? ‘Cause I need someone I can bounce this sketch idea off of, and the writers have locked everybody out of the writers’ room, I gotta review some of these headline jokes.” And—well, with _Blindspot_ midway through its production season, Yasha hasn’t been around as often as Beau might like. Least she’s not in _Peru_.

“I don’t have any plans right now, no,” says Yasha, and there’s something warm in her voice that makes Beau’s heart do some dumb romantic cliché, like flip end over end in her chest, or beat faster against her ribcage like a wild animal that’s been caged. It certainly makes her smile stupidly at nothing. “I can come meet up with you at the studio.”

“Nah, nah, not the studio,” says Beau. “How about—that place you were talking about, the one with the falafel balls?”

“Oh! Yeah, we can meet up there,” says Yasha, and Beau finds herself imagining Yasha’s smile, that soft, small thing. “It’s in Hell’s Kitchen, so I can be there in fifteen minutes. I guess I’ll see you there?”

“Yeah,” says Beau, smiling up at clear blue skies, “yeah, you’ll see me there.”

\--

“So I watched Marie Kondo’s show on tidying up last week, just to see what all the fuss was about. What? You can’t blame me. There was drama about this everywhere, and you know me, I adore drama. Everyone had an opinion on this one woman’s method of cleaning your apartment, even our neighbor Mr. Jaffe—yes, him, the one Yasha and I are _sure_ may be secretly an elder god hiding in America as someone’s kindly uncle—and I’ve told you all about how Mr. Jaffe regards _literally anything_. Like, _[adopting a higher-pitched New York accent]_ ‘oh, that reminds me of this weirdly specific thing in the 1700s that I absolutely wasn’t there for!’

No, those aren’t his exact words, but I knew what he meant. No one who wasn’t there for the 1700s knows anything about the 1700s anymore except for rabid Hamilton fans and American Revolution buffs, and he’s too nice to be either.

Anyway, Mr. Jaffe’s entire opinion was that Kondo-ing your apartment was entirely up to you. Which is not helpful, everyone knows that to make an important decision, you have to have somebody else telling you exactly what to decide. But alas! There I was, asking myself, _does this spark joy? Fuck yeah it does, it’s staying._

And then I got completely sidetracked by Captain America comics, and the next thing I know I’ve made an even bigger mess of the apartment than before, while looking for all the Cap comics I forgot that I had. So—sorry, Marie Kondo, I fucked that one up.”

\- Mollymauk Tealeaf, _Massages and Other Things_ at the SoHo Playhouse, 2015


	4. coffee, muffin-tops, and a somewhat sarcastic tip

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “44 dollars for breakfast, that’s a lot, unless of course you live in New York City. In which case it’s _coffee, a muffin-top, and a somewhat sarcastic tip_.” - Jon Stewart

“—and this is Caduceus’ corner,” says Molly, opening a door and stepping to the side to let Caleb into Caduceus’ office. “Bit more than a corner now, he really upgraded from sharing a desk with me.”

“Your desk is not that bad,” says Caleb, stepping in behind him. His tie is a little looser now, and his hair is starting to escape the ponytail it’s been gathered into. It’s. It’s doing something to the part of Molly’s brain that may or may not be descended from primordial lizards. “It’s very clean.”

“Yeah, it’s only been a couple of days since Yasha helped me clean it up,” says Molly. “Give it a week or so and it’ll start spontaneously manifesting half-written jokes on tissue paper again.”

Caleb’s laugh is soft and quick, gone as fast as it came. Molly’s heart does a handstand and an acrobatic flip in his chest. “I have a nearly limitless amount of Post-Its,” he says, “I can give you a few pads so you don’t end up writing on tissue paper.”

“You’re a star,” Molly says, just as he hears a familiar groan from Caduceus’ couch.

The thing about Caduceus is that, somewhere along the way, he became a real, actual, honest-to-god nurse. No one really quite knows how, honestly. There’s a lot of things no one knows about Caduceus, because they don’t really ask him. Not that they all really try to ask each other personal questions beyond what’s required in the audition, but anyway—since Caduceus is literally _a medical professional_ , that means his office is the unofficial clinic of _Live_.

Which means Fjord is currently laid up on the couch with a bucket nearby, looking miserable as hell.

“Hey, Molly,” he says, weakly. Then he squints at Caleb and says, “You’re—Widogast, right? Saw you earlier.” He manages a tired smile. “I’m Fjord. Sorry ‘bout the first impression. I promise usually I’m a lot more mobile than this.”

“You’d be more mobile if you didn’t eat month-old takoyaki,” says Caduceus, writing in a pad. He looks up and smiles at Molly and Caleb, and says, “Hey, Molly. You should’ve mentioned you were bringing a friend, I would’ve put out an extra cup.”

“He can have mine, it’s fine,” says Molly, patting Fjord on the head. “I’m just touring him around anyway, so we won’t be here long. Caleb, this is Caduceus Clay, he actually used to be a nurse before he became one of our writers. Caduceus, this is Caleb Widogast, the new writer.”

“I heard about you,” Caduceus rumbles, standing up to hold his hand out. “It’s nice to meet you.” He tilts his head to the side and adds, “I’d say _don’t eat the food in the fridge, it’s usually long expired,_ but I think Fjord over here’s a good example.”

“Glad to know I could be of service,” Fjord grumbles, before he chokes and turns slightly greener. “Oh, hell.”

Molly toes the bucket closer to Fjord’s head.

Caleb looks—well, a little thrown, mostly by Caduceus’ height. Molly doesn’t blame him, Caduceus is seven feet tall and easily dwarfs even Yasha, who’s tall enough to make that six-foot-one human sports guy who came by one time, whatsisname, Willingham, look like a halfling. To Caleb’s credit, he gives Caduceus a firm handshake.

“ _Guten abend,_ ” says Caleb. “It’s a pleasure to meet you too, Herr Clay.”

“Gluten almonds?” Molly says, before he can clamp his mouth shut.

Caleb blinks up at Caduceus, and the professional demeanor cracks for a moment for a shy little smile.

Fjord moans into a pillow, breaking the magic of the moment over his knee. They are absolutely banning him from the fridge from here on out. Fjord just cannot he trusted with ball-shaped foods, no matter how badly they stink.

“Anyway, we’ll be getting out of your silky hair now,” says Molly, picking up a teacup. “I’m taking Caleb down to the studio.”

“Hold on a second,” says Caduceus, plucking the teacup from his hand and pulling out a paper cup, pouring the tea into it. “Here. Beau told me not to let you have any more teacups.”

“ _One_ time,” Molly grumbles, but he takes the paper cup anyway and hands it off to Caleb. “See you later, Cad! No eating any more balls, Fjord!”

“Oh, fuck you, Molly,” Fjord calls after them, as Molly shuts the door behind him and Caleb.

“Is that normal?” Caleb asks, after a moment.

“Eh, happens every few months or so,” says Molly. “We really should clean the fridge out more often. Fjord can’t ever resist the munchies when he gets them.” He takes Caleb’s hand, and marvels at how warm it is in his own. Magic must be thrumming through his veins, Molly thinks, because no human is that warm without working with fire magic one way or another.

Caleb follows along behind him, and it’s quiet for all of three minutes before he says, “Do you—Do you truly not mind?”

“Mind what?” Molly asks, stepping gingerly over a Roomba with a penknife taped to it. Shit, did Jester bring Kiri Junior to work again? The little monster’s stabbed him in the ankle way too many times already. “Sorry about the Roomba, Jester adopted it off its previous owner. It came with the knife already there.”

Caleb steps deftly around the Roomba, with the practiced ease of having avoided much worse than Kiri Junior. “The—My past work,” he says. “Beau does not seem bothered, _no one_ seems to care a whit that I used to work for Fox, is that—barely even a factor?”

Molly squints at him.

“She said everyone here was an _arschloch_ ,” says Caleb, helplessly. “And that all she cared about was that I was funny.”

“Funny thing about Beau, she always says exactly what she means,” says Molly. “She is a frustratingly blunt person, on and off-camera, and she can be unpleasant and abrasive to the extreme, but when she tells you that she doesn’t care about your past, she _really_ doesn’t.”

“And what about the rest of you?”

“Can’t say shit for the rest of us, I don’t have any spells for divining their thoughts,” says Molly, leading him down the stairs carefully, “but I don’t care about your past either. As long as you don’t smack someone’s arse when they don’t want you to, we’re good.” He pauses, then adds, “Last time someone did that Yasha tossed them into a dumpster.”

“Ah.”

“From the second floor.” He mimes the trajectory, then makes an explosion noise.

Caleb winces. “Duly noted, I will not be smacking anyone’s ass,” he says.

“Anyway,” Molly continues, as they step out onto the ground floor and back into the lobby, “some of us did have and say some—questionable shit, back in the day. We’d be hypocrites to turn you out for yours.” He throws the entrance doors to the studio open and proclaims, “Ta-da! Now _this_ is where the magic happens!”

“It’s strange being here and not seeing anyone inside,” says Caleb, poking his head through the doorway and Molly saunters down the aisles. “I am so used to—to Scanlan, or Beau, at that seat, it is bizarre not seeing Beau sitting there already ranting about tax breaks for the rich.”

“She’ll be back in time for rehearsal,” says Molly, flopping into her chair. “In the meantime, I like to warm her chair up for her. It gets very cold sometimes, and she complains like a withered old grandmother about it when it does.” He stretches out in it, enjoying the way the back tips back to accommodate his movement. “ _Gods_ , this feels amazing. I ought to steal this chair again.”

“Wait, that wasn’t a bit?” Caleb asks, coming up the stage’s stairs to perch lightly on Beau’s anchor desk. Under the stage lights, his hair seems almost to glow like fire. “You really did steal her chair?”

“Yeah-huh,” says Molly. “Not as often as the bit implies, but this thing reclines _and_ spins.” He twirls the chair around to demonstrate, and grins when Caleb covers his mouth with a calloused hand to stifle his laughter. “Mine doesn’t do either, and one of the wheels is broken! That’s got to count for a violation of some kind of right.”

“You could just buy a new one,” says Caleb.

“But then I wouldn’t get this chair anymore,” says Molly, kicking his foot up as he reclines. “Hey, you try it.”

“ _Was_ —me?” Caleb shakes his head, and the smile that touches his lips doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “No, I—maybe not.”

“It’s just a chair,” says Molly. “There’s no real power in it.” He flings his hand out to indicate the empty soundstage, devoid of everyone but a few techs eyeing Molly like he’s in for it. Which, yeah, he probably is. “The cameras are off and Beau is away, time to play!”

“You’d have to get out of it first,” says Caleb.

“But it’s such a comfy chair,” Molly huffs, but stands up as requested, perching on the desk as Caleb comes closer to the chair. “You know Beau’s probably had sex on that chair, right?”

“What, on set?” Caleb asks, eyes wide.

Molly laughs, and shakes his head. “No—no, she had it before she got the show,” he explains, patting the headrest. “I think it was three years ago that she bought it? And Scanlan was gnomish, so she couldn’t really use his chair. So she brought this in from her apartment.”

“So you’re just guessing,” says Caleb, relaxing, but he still eyes the chair with some trepidation.

“It’s an educated guess based on what I know of Beau,” says Molly. “Come on, take a seat. It’s nice and warm, thanks to me.”

“No one here will mind?” Caleb asks, nodding to the techs setting up, testing mics, fiddling with the teleprompter.

“If they minded, we wouldn’t have the running gag in the first place,” says Molly, encouragingly. He smacks his tail against the arm rest, spins the chair around to face Caleb. “Take a seat, you’ve earned it.”

Caleb, with some hesitation, lowers himself down onto the chair. Then he lets out an involuntary sigh of relief, and relaxes into the back. “This is so _plush_ ,” he says.

“Yeah, apparently Beau splurged on it,” says Molly, unable to help a small smile. Caleb all relaxed and happy just—looks like he’s finally content. In the less than twenty-four hours that Molly’s known him, counting the time he went to see him at the bar, Caleb’s only really given off vibes of—of being lost, and adrift, and unsure of where to go next, except for his dryly humorous persona onstage. This is maybe the first time he’s ever seen Caleb look _content_ , smiling softly to himself.

“It reclines,” Molly adds, and Caleb’s eyes snap open, shocked.

“Where did she even _get_ this chair?” Caleb asks, tentatively feeling around for the lever that makes the chair recline. When he pulls on it, the back slowly leans away.

“A deal with a demon, I’ll just bet,” says Molly. “And—I think that concludes our tour? Unless you want to take a break, go to the food trucks the writers usually swarm at lunch.” He smiles a little, leaning in closer. “The sooner Inday at the Asian food truck knows your face the better, honestly,” he says. “Gives her time to warm up to you.”

“Well,” says Caleb, contemplatively, “I do feel a little peckish.”

\--

 _[Video opens to Mollymauk Tealeaf inside the_ Live at Night _offices, in the late afternoon, putting a finger to his lips. In his BABY SLUT crop top and ripped jeans, he’s the height of unprofessionalism, exacerbated by the fact that he is currently rolling along a familiar sleek black chair to audience members of the show.]_

 **MOLLYMAUK TEALEAF:** Beau’s talking to Comedy Central right now, and since she’s deigned to ignore my request for a massage chair for the sixth time—

 **JESTER LAVORRE:** _[offscreen]_ Seventh!

 **MOLLYMAUK TEALEAF:** Seventh time, thank you dear, I’ve decided to take her chair hostage. Beau, if you’re watching this, my terms are: give me the massage chair and I’ll return this chair with minimal crumbs! Otherwise, when you get this back, it’s gonna be _Crumb City_ on your ass.

 **JESTER LAVORRE:** _[offscreen]_ Are you _sure_ you can stick to that? I’ve seen you tear through Cali’s apple pies.

 **MOLLYMAUK TEALEAF:** Let’s not cast aspersions on my eating habits here, Jes. Well, no more than I’m already doing.

 **BEAUREGARD LIONETT:** _[distant, offscreen]_ Mollymauk! _Mollymauk Tealeaf you giant fucking asshole!_

 **MOLLYMAUK TEALEAF:** And that’s our cue! Molly out!

\- video posted on Mollymauk Tealeaf’s YouTube account, entitled “THE CHAIR WAR”

\--

Beau’s there first, early enough to catch a pretty good table before the food truck’s tables start to fill up. Her father would never believe that she got to any meeting early, but then her father never really figured she’d amount to much after she ditched his careful plan for her as his heir to be a lesbian comedian. So hey, fuck that plan, right.

She leans back against her chair, fiddling with her sleeve. She tightens her tie, then loosens it, then tightens it again. She undoes the topknot her hair is in, then ties it back up again, careful to pull every strand back into a ponytail. Then she rolls her sleeves up just enough to expose some of her muscles.

“Hot date?” the half-orc cook says, leaning on her elbows. A pierced eyebrow goes up as Beau loosens her tie once more.

“Not exactly a date,” says Beau. “But yeah. She’s pretty hot.”

“Must be if you’re trying to look good,” says the cook. “What look are you going for, anyway? Casual or professional?”

“She’s a friend,” says Beau, “but, y’know, I’m trying to look good, so.”

“Lose the tie,” says the cook. “If she’s a buddy of yours, she’s not gonna give a shit that you don’t have a tie, and you don’t gotta fuss around with it too much.” She rests her chin on the heel of her hand. “Trust me on that. Nothing makes a date go sour like my date fucking around with their tie.”

Years ago Beau would’ve snarled _who asked you_ , tone and words chosen to sting. Here and now, she just raises an eyebrow and says, with hard-earned patience coming from dealing with her office and the things she talks about on air, “I’m not dating you. Or her. Kinda.”

“Oh, yes, it’s _not exactly_ a date,” says the cook, but she holds her hands up. “Why look good?”

“Maybe I just feel like lookin’ good,” Beau shoots back. “Is it any of your business?”

“Was just askin’, jeez,” the cook mutters, but goes back to slinging falafel balls onto plates and calling out numbers. Beau leans back into her chair, and looks down at her tie again. Yasha’s never really given a shit if she’s wearing her tie loose or not, so she lets it be loose. After a moment, she unties her hair again, letting it fall over the side of her head and running a hand through it.

Yasha comes into view then, and Beau’s breath catches right in her throat. She must’ve taken the time to change out of her character’s clothes, because Beau’s pretty sure the badass assassin Yasha’s playing on _Blindspot_ would never be caught dead in buttoned-up flannel and dark jeans.

Beau sticks her hand up into the air, and Yasha brightens, marches on over and pulls a chair out, taking a seat.

“Hello,” says Yasha, then, “So what is this idea you wanted to bounce off of me?”

Beau had actually just wanted to see Yasha again. But she’s a comedian, she’s fucking brilliant at improvisation, so she says, “I watched something about Wall Street’s reaction to all the stories about harassment and abuse coming out of the woodwork, the other day. You know they’re freaking out and doubling down on the no-women-allowed thing?”

“That is depressing,” says Yasha, making a face.

“Yeah, I know, it’s fucking depressing how stupid they are,” says Beau, “like _we’re_ the ones to blame ‘cause they can’t keep their fucking dicks in their pants, fucking hell.” She shakes her head, lets out a sigh. “I was thinking, maybe you could do a few interviews there? Catch some guys in obviously fancy suits, ask them questions, be as physically intimidating as possible and pretend you have _no idea_.”

“You know I am not good at pretending that I am not, y’know, strong,” says Yasha, propping up her cheek on the palm of her hand.

“That’s the fun of it,” says Beau, who’s gotten a lot of mileage out of Yasha failing hilariously at lying. “They fucking eat that wilting flower shit up, and you’re the _exact opposite_. Their cowardly, stupidly paranoid little asses are gonna run so far away from you, it’ll be great.”

Yasha’s mouth turns up into a smile. “I think I can try,” she says. “I can’t guarantee anything, though. It could just end up being cut.”

“It could be, but you’re not gonna know unless you try,” says Beau. “My roommate back in college, she used to say shit like, _you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take_.” Her roommate had been referring to alcoholic shots, but whatever, it means pretty much the same thing. “But if you want my professional opinion? I think you’re gonna kill it.”


End file.
